<Spoiler Alert>

Is the joke about Looper that Bruce Willis has pretty much the same time travel experience he had in Twelve Monkeys? I.e., he goes back in time and sets up the situation that eventually requires him to go back in time in the first place? And also, his wardrobe in Looper is exactly the same as his wardrobe in Pulp Fiction, a brown leather bomber jacket and white t-shirt that gets covered in blood soon after he takes out his nemesis with a machine gun.

So not only does Bruce Willis’s character in Looper travel back in time to meet the past version of himself, but Bruce Willis the actor travels back in time to revisit two roles of mid-nineties Bruce Willis.

If this was intentional, I’m into it.

IS LOOPER A META COMMENTARY ON THE RECURRING PATTERN OF POP CULTURE NOSTALGIA FROM 15-20 YEARS EARLIER? AND THE FAILURE OF THE ARTIST TO ESCAPE ART HISTORY? DOES RIAN JOHNSON WANT US TO BREAK THE CYCLE?

I mean, there’s even that Jeff Daniels line at the beginning of the film, “The movies you’re dressing like are copying other movies. Why can’t you be original?” (And, of course, there’s plenty of documentation on the films Tarantino copied when he made Pulp Fiction.) 

I’VE CRACKED THE LOOPER CODE, PEOPLE.